Chief Secretary Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dr. Shehzad Khan Bangash Friday inaugurated the last anti-polio drive of the year here Friday at Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC) by administering polio and vitamin A drops to the children.
Secretary Health KP Tahir Orakzai, Additional Secretary Health & EOC Coordinator Abdul Basit, Medical Director Hayatabad Medical Complex, Shahzad Akbar, Hospital Director HMC, Shahzad Faisal, Provincial Team Lead Polio, Dr Andrew Etsano and EPI staff were also present on the occasion.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr Shehzad Bangash reiterated strong political commitment for the eradication of polio virus from the region saying that government was taking every measure to ensure children were protected from the lifelong paralysis by carrying out regular anti-polio drives.
He said that government was also ensuring that COVID SOPs were strictly followed by the teams and all stakeholders during anti-polio drives adding that the government was giving equal attention to other antigens of essential immunization to build immunity of children against all the ten deadly diseases.
Responding to media query, the top provincial bureaucrat said that strict security measures were taken for the polio campaign and over 40000 law enforcing personal were deployed with teams to ensure foolproof security. and smooth conduct of the campaign.
Earlier, Additional Secretary Health & Coordinator EOC Abdul Basit informed media that the five days anti-polio drive will be conducted in all districts including Afghan Refugees camps of the province from December 10, next wherein more than 6.4 million children will be administered polio drops along with vitamin A drops to build their gut immunity against the crippling virus.
Abdul Basit said that a total of 30,524 teams have been constituted for the campaign out of which 27,355 are mobile teams, 1902 fixed teams, 1130 are transit teams.
Likewise, he said, that 7370 area in-charges have been deployed to oversee the quality of the campaign whereas more than 40000 police officials will be deployed with teams as part of a security plan for the anti-polio drive.
